TR: Turning lemons into lemonade (well actually beer)

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We took Friday off and headed up to NH with plans to get 3 solid days of riding in.

FRIDAY: by the time we were ready to go it was torrentially pouring with lightning all around. Oh well, scrap the Friday ride. Instead we headed down to One Love Brewery for a few pints of their Summer Bock. At ABV 7, but very light tasting, this is a great summer beer. Over drinks we made plans for redemption with a Saturday ride.

SATURDAY: The goal was to ride the new-ish trail network at PRKR Mtn in Littleton, NH. We got a bit of a late start and it was HOT by the time we hit the trailhead. The upside was that there was only one other truck in the lot so we were looking forward to a nice quiet exploration of a new spot. The start of these trails is all up, up, up. We got less than a mile when I heard a lot SNAP and a shout behind me. My wife's seatpost had snapped (actually one of the bolts that holds the seat). Fortunately she only took a glancing blow from the seatpost as she went down. Unfortunately there's no way to fix that on the trail unless you happen to have a spare bolt. I wasn't looking forward to walking out but I knew she couldn't ride it that way. So we switched bikes and I rode all the way out with no seat. Man that's harder than it sounds!

The upside of all that was that we immediately redirected to the outdoor patio at Schilling's. They had great live music going and the beer was nice and cold!

After a few IPAs we took the roken parts over to Littleton bike shop. They fixed her up quick with a barely-used seatpost they had hanging around. For all of $30 and 5min we were back in business. However, after a few drinks and the day wearing on we weren't really up for tackling the big ride we had planned. So instead we rode at one of tried-and-true trails in Lincoln. We brought the beer along, went to our secret spot on the river, and turned it into an afternoon swim call.

SATURDAY: We knew we needed to a fool-proof plan so we headed up to Kingdom Trails, VT. We were the first people in the lot at 7:45am. It was 64 degrees and overcast...perfect riding weather. Apparently it had absolutely poured rain the night before so we did have some concerns about trail conditions. We were on the bikes and off into the woods by 8:15, with only a few people starting to show up. We immediately came across some downed trees from the previous night's storm. We dragged them out of the way and wondered if this was going to work out. After that it was smooth sailing. There was some mud and some slick spots, but their trails are so immaculate that they completely handle even a heavy rain. We got almost 4 hours of phenomenal riding in and got back to the barn just as they started serving beer.

Even with all the hiccups, it turned into a great weekend. Bring on the next one!

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Very nice.That stream looks refreshing!!I have never coupled biking with a visit to a brewery, but this past Saturday I took a solo 25 mile bike ride on the W and OD bike trail and about 1.5 miles from the finish I passed a trailside brewery - seriously tempted, maybe next time?On Sunday I spent about an hour biking with wife and daughter on the C&O Canal towpath near Wash DC. - followed by a post-ride Heineken beside the Potomac River. As an older dude, biking is one of my few remaining fitness pursuits and generally strengthens my knees, rather than breaking them down:-)

PS:lemon connection - I'm not a serious beer connoisseur.I've enjoyed summer shandy type beers occasionally over the years, but didn't find out until this summer that Summer Shandy specifically means that the beer is mixed with a form of lemonade.